1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a clothes dryer with an at least approximately horizontally rotatably supported laundry drum, the drum having at least one bottom being supported through a bearing journal on a back wall being joined to the housing of the dryer.
German Petty Patent DE GM 78 11 868 discloses a clothes dryer having a rearward drum bearing which includes a journal being firmly joined to the drum bottom and a bush being firmly joined to the back wall. As a special feature, the known clothes dryer includes a contact pin penetrating the bearing journal coaxially between a galvanically conductive coating of a cap that covers the bearing point inside the drum and a contact spring secured in insulated fashion to the back wall outside the drum. That feature is intended to enable electrical scanning of damp laundry items inside the drum.
With that bearing technique, a bending moment is absorbed by the rotating back wall of the drum. Therefore, the wall is subject to bending all the way around during operation. The thin sheet metal of the back wall of the drum can accordingly be damaged. In order to ameliorate such bending moments and protect the back wall of the drum against damage, the back walls of the drum have been reinforced with flanges of thick sheet metal. The bearing journal, flange and drum are made of steel and are firmly joined together, so that noises occurring in the bearing are carried through the drum to the outside, undamped.